I'm british so it's a bit different over here, we start from a position of no red scares and half the population generally having a good opinion of "socialism" even if they don't fundamentally know what that means. There's considerably more understanding of class politics here so starting from an explanation of class and private property is simple. I never really start with an explanation of communism, I always start with an explanation of capitalism, its class system and property creating an exploiter and exploited relationship then move onto how you can change that that.
The people genuinely feeling that exploitation will be really into it and the people not feeling that exploitation because they're too comfortable will either be reasonably positive but with the wrong conditions to be revolutionary or they'll be like "But what about 100 gorillion dead?". Depending on the result I'm then either trying to send them to follow social media / content creators that they might view daily/weekly where their understanding will then expand over time and they'll interact with other communists who will also teach them. Or I'm moving on and not wasting my time further.
Occasionally I'll go out of my way to intentionally give someone an extremely negative experience if I think it's what's necessary to open up that person. I don't look at my interactions with others as existing in a vacuum, we are a movement made up of millions of people and your interaction with someone is unlikely to be the only interaction that person ever has with a communist or anarchist. A negative experience might encourage a person to behave slightly differently for the next person than they did for me, making it more possible for that person to make a breakthrough where it was very obvious I could not due to the bs being pulled. That's a very personal and careful judgement I make based purely on vibes though.
The key for me is really teaching them some of the basics and then getting down to something that person physically feels. You get a pretty clear idea of what kind of person you're dealing with once you get to the point where they will or will not have direct experience with the feeling of exploitation you're talking about.
I'm extremely dismissive of people when they try to go to China propaganda. Literally to the point of eyerolling and laughing at them about listening to rightwing media. A firm anti-media position is all that can be done. Depending on who I'm talking to I might respond with "oh you're willing to dismiss the obvious propaganda when it's terf shit but not when it's anything else lol".
How young are we talking? I think people in 15-30 age range haven't hit the wall in terms of their careers and still have a bright eyed view of their potential futures. Once people hit that 30+ mark things start to significantly change as changing careers becomes less likely and doorways start to close. The reality of the exploitative system they exist within settles in.
Comfortable middle income Brits are absolutely a lost cause all they do is go on holidays and watch Strictly Come Dancing and Britain's Got Talent or other drivel on tv. You won't even get them to acknowledge flying is a major ecological problem because they do it every year even if they agree climate change is real and a crisis. They're some of the most selfish fucks in the country firmly entrenched in a petit boug mindset even if they don't have petit boug incomes. It's why they fucking love neoliberals like Starmer so much, he's playing into them and expecting the rest of us to fall in line behind "not the tories" despite despising him.
I am extremely self-confident and completely willing to stand my ground but that also comes from having engaged in discussion enough to feel confident in either dismissing or handwaving when necessary. Ultimately if you do it enough you build up your responses and ability to handle situations, you get better at it. Pretty much all these conversations have a flowchart that you eventually build out and become repetitiously better and better at.
Haha it's ok I do get some of this. There is an entrenched belief among a lot of people in the country that they "understand economics" and yet they'll use the BBC's old description of the national debt being like household debt whenever you talk about spending. They are people that fundamentally know nothing but believe they are very knowledgable.
I aim to get away from this crowd and deeper into poorer groups. I particularly like getting into the community via allotments, which tend to have pretty strong networks of people that you can tap into to meet groups of very poor but well connected people in a local area. The poorer people in an area tend to know shit-load of the locals because I guess when you're poor your social group forcefully must be closer and closer to home.
There's a lot of brainworms that exists in these spaces, especially if they read anything american, I come across q anon stuff more frequently than I want to, but they're easier people to talk to because they fundamentally feel that SOMETHING is fucking them over. A lot of them redirect that to a vague "establishment" or illuminati conspiracyism and shit but it's the feeling of exploitation. If you know any people into that kind of shit, they can be redirected towards marxist things that better explain the feelings they have more clearly.
I do think the way you carry yourself is a major factor here too. Being entirely unflinching and unembarrassed tends to get me a much better response from people than many years ago when I carried myself with more uncertainty. People feed off of it in one direction or the other.
Local trans girl bullies landlord to tears by telling them repeatedly to “get mao’d”. When pressed the assailant described her vicious attack as “exercising more confidence” in herself.
Lmao I don't tend to be quite like that, just unashamedly "I am a communist, the communist view is xyz". Then I'll sidestep or go into topics based on whether I think it's worth it or not.
I'm british so it's a bit different over here, we start from a position of no red scares and half the population generally having a good opinion of "socialism" even if they don't fundamentally know what that means. There's considerably more understanding of class politics here so starting from an explanation of class and private property is simple. I never really start with an explanation of communism, I always start with an explanation of capitalism, its class system and property creating an exploiter and exploited relationship then move onto how you can change that that.
The people genuinely feeling that exploitation will be really into it and the people not feeling that exploitation because they're too comfortable will either be reasonably positive but with the wrong conditions to be revolutionary or they'll be like "But what about 100 gorillion dead?". Depending on the result I'm then either trying to send them to follow social media / content creators that they might view daily/weekly where their understanding will then expand over time and they'll interact with other communists who will also teach them. Or I'm moving on and not wasting my time further.
Occasionally I'll go out of my way to intentionally give someone an extremely negative experience if I think it's what's necessary to open up that person. I don't look at my interactions with others as existing in a vacuum, we are a movement made up of millions of people and your interaction with someone is unlikely to be the only interaction that person ever has with a communist or anarchist. A negative experience might encourage a person to behave slightly differently for the next person than they did for me, making it more possible for that person to make a breakthrough where it was very obvious I could not due to the bs being pulled. That's a very personal and careful judgement I make based purely on vibes though.
The key for me is really teaching them some of the basics and then getting down to something that person physically feels. You get a pretty clear idea of what kind of person you're dealing with once you get to the point where they will or will not have direct experience with the feeling of exploitation you're talking about.
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I'm extremely dismissive of people when they try to go to China propaganda. Literally to the point of eyerolling and laughing at them about listening to rightwing media. A firm anti-media position is all that can be done. Depending on who I'm talking to I might respond with "oh you're willing to dismiss the obvious propaganda when it's terf shit but not when it's anything else lol".
How young are we talking? I think people in 15-30 age range haven't hit the wall in terms of their careers and still have a bright eyed view of their potential futures. Once people hit that 30+ mark things start to significantly change as changing careers becomes less likely and doorways start to close. The reality of the exploitative system they exist within settles in.
Comfortable middle income Brits are absolutely a lost cause all they do is go on holidays and watch Strictly Come Dancing and Britain's Got Talent or other drivel on tv. You won't even get them to acknowledge flying is a major ecological problem because they do it every year even if they agree climate change is real and a crisis. They're some of the most selfish fucks in the country firmly entrenched in a petit boug mindset even if they don't have petit boug incomes. It's why they fucking love neoliberals like Starmer so much, he's playing into them and expecting the rest of us to fall in line behind "not the tories" despite despising him.
I am extremely self-confident and completely willing to stand my ground but that also comes from having engaged in discussion enough to feel confident in either dismissing or handwaving when necessary. Ultimately if you do it enough you build up your responses and ability to handle situations, you get better at it. Pretty much all these conversations have a flowchart that you eventually build out and become repetitiously better and better at.
deleted by creator
Haha it's ok I do get some of this. There is an entrenched belief among a lot of people in the country that they "understand economics" and yet they'll use the BBC's old description of the national debt being like household debt whenever you talk about spending. They are people that fundamentally know nothing but believe they are very knowledgable.
I aim to get away from this crowd and deeper into poorer groups. I particularly like getting into the community via allotments, which tend to have pretty strong networks of people that you can tap into to meet groups of very poor but well connected people in a local area. The poorer people in an area tend to know shit-load of the locals because I guess when you're poor your social group forcefully must be closer and closer to home.
There's a lot of brainworms that exists in these spaces, especially if they read anything american, I come across q anon stuff more frequently than I want to, but they're easier people to talk to because they fundamentally feel that SOMETHING is fucking them over. A lot of them redirect that to a vague "establishment" or illuminati conspiracyism and shit but it's the feeling of exploitation. If you know any people into that kind of shit, they can be redirected towards marxist things that better explain the feelings they have more clearly.
I do think the way you carry yourself is a major factor here too. Being entirely unflinching and unembarrassed tends to get me a much better response from people than many years ago when I carried myself with more uncertainty. People feed off of it in one direction or the other.
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Lmao I don't tend to be quite like that, just unashamedly "I am a communist, the communist view is xyz". Then I'll sidestep or go into topics based on whether I think it's worth it or not.
deleted by creator